Portal 2 Space Personality Core Helmet / Mask

In this instructable, I will show you how to make a Portal 2 space core mask with a simple speaker which reads off space core quotes. This is simple instructable, and all the materials I needed for the project i found lying around the house, so i assume that you could likely find the materials rather easily. To make the mask, it takes a maybe 1 hour and 30 minutes (not including the time it takes for the paper mache to dry - which would be about a day), and all the experience you would need for making this mask would have already been acquired from preschool. 

So with that said, off to the materials list.

Step 1: Materials

Here's what you'll need to make the mask:

-A balloon 
-Newspaper and/or paper towel sheets
-Flour
-Water
-Black and white paint
-A hot glue gun with glue gun sticks
-Cardboard tube (or tubes, depending on the size)
-Orange construction paper
-Dark somewhat see through sheet plastic (this is really the most difficult thing to find, but if you scrounge around you might get lucky)


The materials for the speaker which reads off space core quotes:

-An mp3 player of whatever variety 
-A small speaker
-An mp3 of the space core quotes

Step 2: The Mask Frame

Alright, now that we have our materials, it's time to make the frame. This will be made out of paper mache (<-- please excuse me if im spelling that wrong). I assume most people have at one point in their lives have made paper mache, but i will tell you how to do so just in case.

Paper mache is made by taking some type of paper (eg. newspaper or paper towel), soaking it in a flour/water mixture, then taking the soaked paper and setting it upon a surface which it will then dry and harden on - thusly taking the shape of the surface it was upon.

With that being said, here's how we will make our frame:

We will take 2 cups of flour and 2 cups of water and mix it in a large bowl (if 2 cups of each is not enough for you, you can add more of both ingredients on a 1 : 1 ratio). We will then take a balloon and blow it up until it is slightly larger than your head. Then we drench sheets of our paper in the flour water and layer them over top the balloon- warning, this is messy so try to work in an area you wont mind getting dirty. Overall you will need about 2 or 3 layers of paper mache. Leave a gap at the bottom on the balloon for the next step.

Once you have layered on the mache, you should wait about a day or so for it to dry (if it feels soft still, it needs to dry longer). If it has dried, use a pin to pop the balloon inside the paper mache shell.

Tips:
To get a move even coating of paper mache on the balloon, rip the paper into smaller bits. This will help prevent crumpling of the paper. 
The final coating is preferable to be made out of paper towel. This is because paper towel is white, and when we paint over the paper towel we will have a better looking coat of paint than if newspaper was used on the final layer. 

Step 3: Making the Hole for Your Head

So now that we have  a paper mache shell the size of our head, its time to make it fit on our head. 

We will take the hole we used to pop the balloon and widen it up and smooth out the edges using a knife and / or scissors (as always, be careful when using a knife or scissors). To get the right dimensions of the hole for the mask, the easiest technique is trial and error: widen up the hole, see if it fits, if it doesn't fit then repeat.

Try to cut most of the hole from the back of the mask, as cutting from the from the front would ruin the spherical look of the mask and just make it look overall worse.

Step 4: The First Bit of Painting

As the space core is mostly white, our first layer of paint will be white. Although the paper towel on the final layer of the paper mache is white, the flower from the paper mache turns the mask slightly yellow. 

To paint the mask... well, just paint the mask (I'm fairly confident you can paint).

Wait for the paint to fully dry before heading on to the next step.

Step 5: Cutting the Slot for the Visor.

To make a hole for the visor, we must first measure the distance from one of our eyes to the other eye. The circular hole for the visor should have a diameter slightly larger than this distance (so that when the mask is finished you can see out of it).
Then, we take a compass and using the measurement from one eye to the other we mark a circle on the outside of the mask - whichever way you wish to be the front of the mask.

Now that we have marked a circle on our mask, we must cut it out using a knife or scissors. Make sure you cut this hole in ONE PEICE. This is necessary for the next part of this step.

So now that you have a hole in the mask and a circular disk of paper mache, we will cut a straight horizontal line through the disk. We will now be left with two semicircles. Next, we take the semicircles and glue them into the inside of the mask facing the visor hole (use the picture for reference).

Step 6: Painting Part 2

Here, we add more details onto the space core. Whip out your black paint and start painting out the design. For reference you can use the photo i attached to this step, or the photo of the space core itself in step 2.

I printed out an "aperture science" logo and pasted it onto the mask, you can do that too if you wish.

Step 7: The Visor

Now that we have the design and most of the shape down, we will begin work on the visor. 

First of all, cut out several thin rectangular shapes from your orange construction paper (try to make them all symmetric if possible) then hot glue them in a circular pattern on the dark plastic sheeting (use the picture for reference).

Now we take the sheet and glue it into the inside of the mask (make sure the sheet is reasonably sized - not too small or too large for the mask). Make sure that the orange marks are in the center of the visor hole when you glue it in.

Step 8: The "Handles" on the Mask

Finally, we add the handles to the mask. To do so, we take a few cardboard tubes (such as ones found in toilet paper rolls, wrapping paper rolls, etc.) for the handle and paint them white, then wait for the paint to dry. Once the paint has dried, paint the middle section of the roll black.

Now that we have a black and white cardboard tube, we cut it in half from top to bottom. We should be left with 2 halves of black and white cardboard.

We then take another cardboard tube, and quarter it from top to bottom so that we have cardboard strips. Take the strips and hot glue them perpendicularly to each of the ends of the black and white cardboard strips (don't be afraid of using too much hot glue - there is no such thing).

We then take the two handles that we have just made, and hot glue them to the rest of the mask as seen below (again, use a bunch of hot glue).


You should now have a complete mask!

Now for a little bit of copywrite stuff... 
I do understand that the "space core" was thought up by Valve, and i do not take any credit for their idea. This is simply a mask based off of their idea.

Also, this is my first instructable, so tell me how i did and what i missed, but don't be too hard.

Step 9: OPTIONAL: Space Core Quotes.

What i am doing to make my costume even more awesome, is adding a small speaker attached to an mp3 player which reads off space core quotes in a robotic voice. This is just for added authenticity and awesomeness. 

If you dont want to add a speaker, you could of course still just speak like the space core. Here's a roundup of all the space core quotes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVn1oQL9sWg